


if you would only listen

by nutellamuffin



Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Light Angst, Post-Prince Caspian, also, and bold of u to assume i meant letting go of edmund, and ed is going to teach him because mental health is important, and he needs to learn to stop, cas loved his uncle even when he shouldn't have, ignoring canon (again), or at least edmund does, the pevensies stay in narnia, they aren't together and then They Are, they're going to speak all regally Because I Said So, we don't do our boys like that in this house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:42:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25763095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nutellamuffin/pseuds/nutellamuffin
Summary: or, caspian x and the art of letting go.
Relationships: Caspian/Edmund Pevensie
Kudos: 45





	if you would only listen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MostlyFandomTrash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MostlyFandomTrash/gifts).



edmund watches caspian stare down at his throne and does not sit. he has been standing there for nearly five minutes now, and the just does not know whether he even registers him watching or not, but for any possibility, he does not say a word.

if edmund were peter, he most likely would have asked. why the new king does not move, why he seems paralyzed by the mere sight of the stone. (if he were lucy, he might’ve taken caspian’s hand. he might’ve told him,  _ it’s not hard, and it must get comfortable after a little bit. _ )

but edmund is not peter and edmund is not lucy, edmund is himself; and evidently, that means that he does not need to ask to know why caspian is standing still.

he has known this boy who the kingdom dubs a man for barely enough time to get inside his head. it doesn’t take long for the just to do so- that, after all, is how he’s the greatest swordsman perhaps all of narnia has ever known- and maybe he is in caspian’s head enough to outsmart him in a duel, but not to know exactly what he is thinking. but he can guess.

to say edmund was “good at reading people” was an understatement. (sometimes, he thought he was glorified for something that simply meant he wasn’t stupid.) to him, it meant putting two and two together faster than most.

that is the throne that caspian’s father sat on, who edmund does not need to be a psychic to know he looked up to more than anything.

that is the throne that miraz sat on, who murdered said father in cold blood and lied to caspian’s face about it for the better half of his life.

that is the throne that is now caspian’s, and he does not know if he is ready.

and edmund realizes that the new king was simply not paying attention to his presence before when he asks, “was it hard to take your throne?” (it took much too long of edmund convincing him not to call him  _ your majesty _ at every opportunity. perhaps it wore off in the heat of battle.)

edmund is not a deceitful person. not anymore, though he doubts he ever was.  _ (traitor king  _ rings in his ears and yet, he knows he was never truly  **deceitful** .) and perhaps the only option after that is to be honest, but he knows that he has no reason to lie.

“yes.” he answers simply, looking once more from caspian’s gaze to the stone it rests on, and how the other seems like he wishes to melt into the floor. there is no one watching, only edmund, and he would gladly leave if caspian so much as asked, but he does not. he only nods, once, and takes a step back.

caspian eyes the throne as if it will morph into a demon and stab him. or perhaps not the throne itself, perhaps someone who used to sit on it. he glances to it, and then in one movement, leaves the room. he does not look to edmund as he does so.

caspian comes home from a place that feels more so and when the floors do not move, he feels strange. though he does not hesitate as he once had to sit down on his throne when it is needed, and edmund thinks of a time where such an occurrence didn’t seem possible. (perhaps it is progress, or perhaps it is necessity.)

edmund notices a few things once he gets acquainted back in the castle. he notices how he has moved his king’s quarters to his own room, the one he used to have when he was only a prince. he notices that the official king’s quarters, belonging to caspian’s late parents and then miraz, remains untouched. furthermore, closed and locked. and he notices how caspian avoids it at any point that he can.

he asks why, trying to make it seem offhanded, and caspian gives him a whimsy answer about windows and facing the sunrise that edmund doesn’t believe for one moment, but he does not press any further.

but the thought does not leave his mind. not when he traces the stars while lying on the floor of the astronomy tower, side by side with his lover and wishing for moments past; not when caspian looks at him with such a blinding smile that he could swear nothing is wrong; not when he sits on the throne although it is nothing.

because it isn’t. edmund can see it. he can see the mere  _ action _ weighing down on him every day, he sees the toll it takes on him, however small; and for someone who prides himself on putting two and two together faster than most, it takes longer than expected to realize that it is something more than caspian still believing he is not ready.

they are ridding the king’s quarters- the  _ official _ king’s quarters, edmund must remind himself- of all its contents to turn it into a separate room for who knows what. they do not have to be here, both of them know this, but edmund insisted that they do. ( _ for closure, _ he’d said, and nothing more, and the advisor knew more than to doubt him.)

caspian has had his hand on the doorknob for nearly five minutes now and the key shakes in his other. edmund knew this would happen, which is part of the reason why he chose it to be this way; because otherwise, caspian wouldn’t have listened.

“caspian,” edmund says once, and he sighs like he is heavy with the world on his shoulders. (or perhaps it is only the seafarer, for he is edmund’s world, and one does not coexist without the other as a worry.) “you must stop thinking of him. he does not deserve it.”

and caspian only shakes his head, his grip goes taught on the doorknob and then loosens, and he drops his hand completely. he does not turn to look at his husband and edmund does not make him. he puts one hand on caspian’s arm and glances up at him, wishing more than ever that the world weighing down on  _ caspian’s _ shoulders was not nearly as heavy as it happened to be.

“it has been years, cas,” he says, quieter, and he cannot miss the hitch in caspian’s breath.

“you need not remind me.”

“he cannot hurt you any longer.”

and still, the seafarer does not look at him. he does not look to the doorknob, either, not this time- he looks to the side; perhaps the floor, perhaps into nothing, perhaps only away from the just.

“i am aware. somehow. and yet,” he trails off and it takes everything in edmund not to take that key and break it. not to say,  _ it’s alright, we will face your demons another day, _ and draw him back to a quiet corner of the courtyard, where he may listen to the sweet words he so carefully spins and thread a bloom into his hair.

but he cannot, and he does not, because he cannot bear watching his husband live like this any longer. shying from the ghosts who lurk in that room, their presence on the books and the bedsheets and the window latches. running from what he was shoved into when he was only a boy, a throne drenched in blood that means nothing to anyone but him,  _ a throne drenched in blood that has his name on it. _ he cannot watch caspian destroy himself from the inside out because try as he might, he cannot let go.

and so edmund is going to teach him.

the guest’s quarters remain unlocked and open, and the sheer drapes on the windows flow as a given. it has been ridden of all things that do not belong; old books from a life that was striven to be forgotten live again on the bookshelves of the kings’ quarters, and the key has been long hidden away, save for the moments when the guest wishes to have some privacy.

the seafarer’s shoulders are a little lighter these days, as is the just’s from beside him, and no names circle his head of which shouldn’t be there. (not in a caring fashion, at least, not in ways that matter.) the king spins sweet words to his husband in the quiet corner of the courtyard that is theirs, and nothing else weighs on his mind save for registering the touch of the other, threading a flower into his hair.

the throne is not nearly as cold, and it does not cost as much to have to sit on it every day. and perhaps it is drenched in blood, and neither of them ignore it, but the seafaring king is able to realize that it is not on his hands.

caspian places two white roses on his parents’ graves and leaves nothing for the other. edmund watches, and smiles.


End file.
